


sharper than a serpent's tooth

by juurensha



Series: do we not bleed [3]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Canon Compliant, Developing Friendships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Feels, Female Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Mentors, Post-Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Post-Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Redemption, Soul-Searching, Team Bonding, Team Feels, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 12:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11185371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juurensha/pseuds/juurensha
Summary: Gamora always thought the hardest part would be getting away from Thanos. It turns out it may be learning to get along with the others.





	sharper than a serpent's tooth

**Author's Note:**

> So originally I wanted to write a fic exploring the idea that only Gamora and Nebula really knew what it was like growing up together, and then I wrote a Mantis fic and thought well I kind of want Gamora and Mantis to talk more, and then I actually started writing the fic, and it kind of got away from me. Still, I hope you enjoy it!

She had always thought, curled up in whatever corner of the galaxy that Thanos had sent her, keeping her breaths steady so that whichever sibling sent with her would notice nothing amiss, that the hardest part would be managing to break away from Thanos’ hold and get to some part of the galaxy that he somehow couldn’t reach.

And for the first few days after defeating Ronan, she sticks to that plan, pulling up far-away galaxies on the nav-screen and plotting courses in between helping Rocket water and tend to Groot’s pot, avoiding the Nova Corps (gratitude for saving Xandar or not, she is still a wanted daughter of Thanos, and gratitude has never had a long lifespan in her experience), and accompanying Peter to clean up debris (Peter needs help lifting up wall-sections; Terrans do not seem to be very strong).

But one day goes by, and then two, then three, and suddenly it’s been two weeks, and she’s on the rebuilt ship as part of the newly christened ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ (Peter is much too excited about the title, grinning widely any time anyone said it), she has her own small cabin, and they’re going to get paid to defend an art dealer’s ship from pirates.

The art dealer’s route will take them all the way to the next quadrant, where she tells herself that she will gather her belongings and disappear into the nearest spaceport as soon as their business is concluded.

Except in between unloading the art dealer’s ship, slapping Rocket’s paws away from anything shiny, scooping up Groot to prevent him from getting crushed underfoot, and trying along with Peter to convince Drax to put on a shirt to get into the fancy gallery the art dealer needed them to deliver all the crates to (they compromise on an unbuttoned shirt), she never ends up at the spaceport.

Instead, she’s back on the _Milano,_ flying to Xeron to steal ship plans back for their rightful inventor.

She tells herself that it’s fine; Xeron also has a large space-port, and she can leave just as well from there.

But that job goes by, and another, and another, and another, and she knows she should pack up her sword and her coat and leave, but she keeps telling herself, just one more day.

Just one more day of Peter’s staticky Terran music, Rocket’s piles of halfway-built bombs and other assorted weaponry, Drax’s steady sharpening of his knives, and Groot stretching in his pot and smiling at her.

Just one day more, and then she will go.

But with every day that she’s constantly checking the newsfeeds for signs of Thanos or any of her siblings (if her heart leaps a bit when she finds any mention of a Luphomoid woman, well, Nebula is probably the deadliest of Thanos’ children after herself) and still no word, the insidious hope that maybe she’s actually _gotten away_ burns brighter.

(She tries to grind it down because hope makes her reckless, and it always comes crashing down again, but—

Last time it didn’t.

Last time she actually got the orb to Knowhere and saved Xandar and Peter.)

So perhaps getting away from Thanos was easier than she thought, but life after certainly wasn’t.

The first time Peter tries to steal a root off of her plate, she puts him in a chokehold.

(The first lesson she learned from Thanos’ children was to never show any weakness ever.

If you give once, then forever afterwards you will give and give and give until either there is nothing left of you to give any longer or you learn to _take.)_

“What the hell—Gamora! _Gamora_!” Rocket’s yells filter through, and somehow he’s shot across the table and is now clawing at her arm, “What are you _doing_? Get off of him! You’re _killing_ him!”

(What?

No, she’s not using her full strength—but, Peter is Terran, not one of Thanos’ augmented children.)

She releases her hold, and Peter tumbles from her grasp, leaning against the floor and gasping for breath.

“What. The. Fuck. Gamora,” Peter rasps out, glaring up at her.

“I—”

(That’s right, she’s on the _Milano._ She’s not back on Titan.

Normal people do not attempt to murder each other at mealtimes.)

“I—I’m sorry. I need to go,” she says, standing up abruptly and walking out of the mess-hall to her room before anyone could move.

(For a heart-stopping second, she had been back there, even though she had been so sure she had seen the last of that godforsaken place. 

Maybe it was a sign.

Maybe it was a sign she should go.

She could grab her sword, get to an escape pod, and—)

“Hey, Gamora?” Peter’s voice, still kind of raspy, floated in from behind her door, “You there?”

She frowns at the door. He hadn’t even recovered yet, what could he want?

“Well, it’s not a big ship, so I guess you’re in there,” Peter’s voice continues, “Can I come in? Or you can come out, if you want?”

On one hand, she is sure she can wait Peter out. On the other, he’s disturbingly good at making his eyes big and sad, and she does not want that (or the image of Peter gasping for breath on the floor) to be the last image she has of him before she leaves, so she triggers the door to open.

“Thanks,” he said, stepping in and looking around her room, “You know you can decorate right? It’s your room now.”

She just looks at Peter, the bruises around his neck much darker than she had realized.

(What is the point of decorating a place that she will soon leave?)

Peter sighs, and sits down on the floor, “So, what was that all about?”

She jerks her eyes away from the livid bruises around his neck, “I’m sorry,” she said, looking him in the eye, “I’m really sorry. It won’t happen again.”

(And it won’t because she’ll be gone.)

 “You know if you don’t want me stealing your food, you can just tell me? Or stab me lightly with a fork?” Peter asks carefully.

“It—I won’t do that again,” she said, looking down at her lap.

(She will miss them all.)

“Hey, look, I’m not mad okay? Or well, not mad anymore anyway,” Peter said gently, peering up at her face, “It’s just—are you okay?”

“Am _I_ okay?” she looked up, “You’re the one with I nearly _strangled.”_

Peter shrugged, “Eh, I’ve had worse from Taserface.”

She stared at him. Surely the translator had glitched?

“I’m sorry, I thought you said ‘Taserface’?” she asks, squinting at Peter.

“Yeah. Dumb name, but dumb guy,” Peter said with a small chuckle, “ _Really_ didn’t like me though. Probably would have really eaten me if Yondu wasn’t around.”

“Taserface,” she repeats wonderingly, testing the name on her tongue.

(Maybe there was just some translation error going on there.)

“But seriously, are you okay?” Peter asks, worry creased on his brow, “Rocket said it was like you—weren’t all there, or something?”

(She doesn’t want to explain, because how can you explain the nightmare that you lived and became? But Peter is doing that annoyingly earnest look again, and she did just nearly kill him, so he deserves an answer.)

“It was a challenge on Titan,” she said haltingly, “Someone stealing your food. You couldn’t let that pass.”

She doesn’t want to say anymore (she doesn’t want to remember), so she’s relieved when Peter nods understandingly.

“Got it. Won’t steal your food,” Peter said, standing up and brushing dust off of his jeans, “Just—if stuff bothers us, let us know?”

She nods back at him, “I’ll try,” she says quietly.

“Well, that was depressing all around,” Peter said before brightening and clapping his hands together, “You know what usually cheers me up? Dancing—”

“I’m not dancing with you, Peter,” she cut in.

“No! I mean—of course if you want to, I’ll dance with you, but you can dance on your own too!” Peter said, wiggling his shoulders up and down around in demonstration, “I can even put on some music, for you?”

She rolls her eyes, tapping the wall to trigger the door to open again, “Good night, Peter.”

“Cherry Bomb? Pina Colada? Ain’t No Mountain High Enough?” he calls as she shuts the door in his face, “I’m going to go with Ain’t No Mountain High Enough!”

And he does, and if she happens to bop her head and shoulders a little in her own room, well, it is a catchy tune.

(A few more days, she tells herself. If she does anything like that again, then she’ll go.)

Except then she nearly runs Drax through with her sword when they are training together; she flips him onto his back and rams her sword down, and if he hadn’t managed to break her hold and roll away—

(Fights among Thanos’ children didn’t stop until your opponent stayed down on the floor through any means necessary.

She had lost once, been ripped apart and put back together by Thanos’ technicians, and then vowed to never lose again.

She now knows she was always going to lose herself no matter what she decided that day.)

“Fine form, Gamora,” Drax says solemnly, standing up and breaking her reverie, “You are an excellent fighter.”

“—yes, thank you,” she says, wrenching her sword out of the training mat and placing it down on the rack.

Drax frowns, “Do you wish to already conclude our training session?”

She gives him a long stare, “…I just nearly killed you. You realize that, yes?”

“Yes,” Drax nods, “That is what makes training with you much more beneficial than sparring with Peter. Besides the fact that Terrans are almost as weak as Sakaraans.”

(Well, if he doesn’t care, maybe it’s okay?

No, of course not. She can’t kill people during friendly sparring sessions; Drax is hardly a good indicator of what a normal response should be.

But—

Another day. Another day, and then she’ll see.)

Except another day drags into another night, and she wakes to something scuttling beyond her vision, and she immediately back-hands whatever it is straight into the wall.

(Night was the most common time for Thanos’ children to prey on one another.

It made missions almost a relief in some ways, because then at least there would be only one or two of her siblings to watch out for, not all of them.)

It isn’t until she hears a small wail and a sad “I am Groot!” that she realizes what she has done.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so _sorry,”_ she whispers, frantically getting up and crouching over Groot, reaching out and then wincing to see Groot crying.

(She’s a monster, and it’s time for her to _go._ )

She rubs Groot’s tears away, grabs her sword and a bag she had set aside full of ration bars, water, and meds since Ronan, and lets Groot climb onto her shoulder and play with her hair.

(The least she can do is put him back in his pot before she leaves.)

She has just coaxed Groot back into his pot, and is punching in the sequence to get into one of the escape pods, when the escape pod door slides open on its own, and Rocket walks out of it and frowns up at her.

“You need this for something?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes,” she says shortly, stepping forward, but Rocket continues to block her way.

“What? Where are you going?” Rocket asks, moving with her.

“I don’t know,” she replies, hitching her pack higher.

Rocket’s frown grows deeper before he asks slowly, “Did you finally get tired of Peter trying to dance with you?”

“No,” she says, tapping her fingers against the strap of her pack.

“Then why are you leaving?”

“I—you know who I am Rocket. What I am. I don’t belong here,” she says, tightening her grip on the strap of her pack until she could feel her nails digging into the palm of her hand.

Rocket let out a short harsh laugh, “Lady, we’ve got a talking tree, a guy who wouldn’t know a metaphor if it bit him, a dance-obsessed half-humie half ancient celestial thing, and me. You’re not even in the running for weirdest thing on board.”

She shakes her head, “Rocket, you don’t get it—I hurt _Groot—”_

“What’d you do?” Rocket interrupts, his tail and ears flaring up.

“He was crawling around my head, and I woke up and threw him against the wall,” she said, wincing at the memory of the _thwap_ sound Groot had made.

“Oh. But he’s okay, right? He’s taken worse hits than that,” Rocket asks, his tail losing some of its fluff.

“He seemed fine, but that’s not the point. I nearly killed Drax—”

“During training right? He was bragging about that.”

She rolls her eyes (of course Drax would), “You saw how I nearly killed Peter—”

“Okay, but he was stealing your food. Guy needs to learn not to steal food from people; can’t believe the Ravagers didn’t teach him that,” Rocket said, waving a paw in the air in dismissal.

She stares at him, “Rocket. You steal food from Drax and Peter all the time,” she said flatly.

“Right, but you don’t steal from the apex predator, you know?” Rocket replies, scratching his ear.

“… _I’m_ the apex predator?”

Rocket snorts, “Well it sure as hell ain’t Quill.”

She holds up her hands (this conversation is going nowhere), “Look Rocket, at some point Thanos is going to come looking for me. You guys don’t want to be here for that.”

“You’re the one who said you wanted to die among friends,” Rocket reminds her, “Besides, even if I let you just leave without saying goodbye to everyone, you can’t. Escape pod isn’t working right now.”

She looks up at the ceiling and closes her eyes briefly (of course), “What did you do _now_ Rocket?”

“Hey, I needed some parts!”

“What if we needed the escape pod for an _emergency_?”

“Well, if you took it, we wouldn’t have it for an emergency anyway, would we?” Rocket points out, crossing his arms, “Look if you really want to leave, take it up with Peter tomorrow, but you’re not going anywhere tonight.”

“Fine,” she snaps, turning away.

(Tomorrow they’ll land on Krylor, and she can easily take a ship going anywhere from there.)

Unfortunately, her plan gets derailed by a frowning Peter at breakfast, sitting at the table with both Rocket and Drax at his side.

“Gamora,” Peter says, carefully setting his fork back down on the table, “We need to talk.”

“About what?” she asks, placing her plate of roots on the table and digging in (who knew when she’d be able to use a good replicator again).

Peter takes a deep breath, “Rocket says you tried to use the escape pod in the middle of the night?”

She shoots a glare at Rocket who is sitting there with his tail twitching, “You _told_ him?”

“What was I supposed to do?” Rocket shoots back, shifting on his stool, “ _You_ weren’t going to say anything.”

“I can’t believe you—was the escape pod even _broken_?” she demands.

Rocket shrugs, “Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.”

Her grip tightens around her fork, “You little—”

“Guys, guys!” Peter yells, holding up his hands and angling himself between her and Rocket, “Look, Rocket is surprisingly a narc, but Gamora, were you seriously going to leave without saying anything to any of us?”

She carefully places her fork down on the table (that that was her first instinct should be sign enough), “Yes.”

Peter’s face seems to crumple a bit, “Oh. But why?”

“Peter,” she says as gently as she can when every fiber of her being is telling her to just cut her losses and _run_ because she can’t afford to care (but the last time she managed to squash that thought down, they had saved Xandar—), “I nearly killed you.”

“That was like two weeks ago! Besides I told you, I’ve had worse—”

“I nearly killed Drax, and I slapped Groot into a wall last night,” she continues, staring down at the table.

“Drax doesn’t care, and Rocket said the thing with Groot was an accident! You just—have some bad first instincts, but it’s not like you’ve done any of those things again,” Peter said, glancing back and forth between Drax and Rocket until they both nodded as well.

“What if I do? What if I don’t have any good instincts?” she asks, looking at all of them.

(What if they all got used up getting away from Thanos and saving Xandar?)

 “You do,” Drax said with a puzzled voice, “You were the one who insisted on us giving the orb to the Nova Corp.”

“Yes but—that’s different.”

“I don’t see how it is,” Drax replies, crossing his arms, “Your first instinct there was to save people instead of profit.”

“My first instinct was to run,” she confesses, looking away.

(Run to the other end of the galaxy and live another day.

Survive.)

“But you didn’t,” Peter said softly, “You stayed and convinced us to stay too. Stay now too.”

(And oh, how she wants to, but it’s not _safe_ with her here.)

She tries a different tack, “Thanos will come for me eventually. And when he does—”

“And when he does, I’ll have built a special bomb just for him,” Rocket interrupts, shoving some mechanical device with a glowing core onto the table.

 Peter eyes widen, “What the _hell_ Rocket, no _bombs_ on the table, _remember_?”

“It’s just the core,” Rocket argues, scooping it back into his arms, “I’m still working on it!”

She shakes her head, “You can’t defeat Thanos with a _bomb—_ ”

“I’ve learned from Ronan, don’t worry,” Rocket says reassuringly, rotating the bomb around, “He won’t know what hit him. Just need a bigger power source…”

“The point is, we’re all in this together,” Peter said, looking Gamora straight in the eye, “If you want to leave because you don’t want to be here anymore, that’s one thing, but not if you’re just trying to protect us. We’re kind of hard to kill anyway, remember? Plus, we’re family, right?”

(It had been Thanos’ perverse pleasure to call of them his family, but before all of that pain and misery and blood, she had had a family on Zen-Whoberi.  

She can no longer call herself their daughter because she had _earned_ the title of Thanos’ favorite daughter.

But now she is a Guardian of the Galaxy.

She earned that as well.)

She nods slowly, and a smile blooms on Peter’s face, and Drax stands up and solemnly walks over to her and engulfs her in his arms.

(Her first instinct is to flip him, but she just barely manages to stop herself, her hand already braced at his shoulder.

Maybe she can actually do this?)

“Yay, group hug!” Peter cheers as he also jumps in to hug her, and Rocket grudgingly climbs up Peter’s back, being sure to tread on his ear before also clinging to her shoulder, and somehow Groot also scrambles up and twines his vines through her hair.

And it’s kind of better after that, knowing that they are with her. Rocket doesn’t steal anything from her, Drax encourages her to go all-out during their sparring sessions, Groot is always careful to knock on her door at night if he wants to play, and Peter always tries to ask her what she wants to do (and convince her of the benefits of dancing by shimmying around, but that’s Peter).

Still, there are small things that they don’t get.

Drax sometimes offers her brightly colored clothes, and she always takes them with a smile, but she never wears them.

(Bloodstains are easier to get out of dark colors.)

Peter hovers annoyingly over her and the others if they get injured on a job, poking around and trying to hand her medicine or bandages until she wants to scream. She settles for going back to her room, locking the door, and tending to her wounds in blessed silence and isolation.

(It was always wise to lick your wounds in privacy, lest someone else smell blood and come to finish you off while you were down.)

When she sees a crate of fresh fruit in the marketplace on Xandar, she buys the whole thing, no haggling, full-price despite Rocket gaping at her and arguing that she was definitely getting ripped off.

(On Titan, they fought over ration bars, punching, kicking, and scrambling for one of those silver packets.

Fresh food was the prize of those favored children who got to go off-world on missions, and fruit those who were actually entrusted with solo missions, not simply burning a planet to ruins.

Dropping as many units as necessary to buy up any and all fruit in a market was probably the only thing her and her many siblings could agree on.)

And these are all tiny, miniscule issues, but while scaling up a wall with spikes on a job with a particularly inventive mark, she tries to exchange eye-rolls with her friends, but Peter is busy trying to dodge the spikes, Drax is hanging off of one, and Rocket is busy trying to help him up, and she catches herself thinking that if Nebula were here—

(A wall with moving spikes is yawn-worthy compared to the training the daughters of Thanos went through.)

She shakes her head quickly, checks to make sure Groot is still securely on her shoulder, and leaps up several of the spikes to reach the top and drag Rocket and Drax over the edge.

Nebula would rather cut off her own hand rather than take Gamora’s help. Why should she think of her at all?

And yet, when she is checking the feeds and sees that the Sovereign have detained a Luphomoid woman with a claw for a hand, she alerts Peter immediately.

Peter of course gets the annoyingly sappy, watery-eyed look when she tells him that only fades slightly when she informs him that of course after they retrieve Nebula, they are taking her straight to the Nova Corps to stand trial.

“I mean, we don’t have to go _straight_ there,” Peter hedges, spreading his hands out, “If you guys want to talk a bit or something—”

“We don’t have anything to talk about,” she snaps, punching in the coordinates for Sovereign, “The more time we spend not delivering her to the Nova Corps, the more time she has to try and kill me.”

(Outside of designated sparring matches, Nebula had never tried to kill her before Ronan.

She had thought that they had had an understanding, but she guesses she had been projecting all along.

After all, can they really be sisters after everything that they have done to each other to survive?)

It turns out though that they’re both right, but only after Rocket has set the entire Sovereign fleet after them and Peter’s secretly evil father showed up.

Still, as they are leaping up growing pillars of rock and dodging weird tentacles made of light, and Nebula is helping her up, Nebula glances around them, everything a riot of roiling dirt and flashes of light and says, “Just like old times, isn’t it?”

Despite the fact that the planet (that is Peter’s father) is literally trying to kill them, she lets out a surprised laugh, “Better,” she replies, looking at the hand Nebula has steadied on her shoulder.

Nebula quickly frowns and snatches her hand away, “Let’s move,” she says shortly.

And then it is just chaos and tears, but as they watch the Ravager ships fire off fireworks that explode in flowers of light to salute Yondu, she sees her own expression of awe mirrored in Nebula.

“So this is what a funeral is like?” Nebula asks quietly, her eyes wide, hand on the window.

“I guess so,” she replies, placing a hand next to Nebula’s and leaning closer to get a better look.

(A child of Thanos that dies is by definition no longer worthy of the title.

It was drilled into their heads that the dead are worth nothing, that remembrance is literally dead weight, but—

She wouldn’t have tried to escape Thanos’ hold if she didn’t remember her dead.

And looking at the tearful smile on Peter’s face and the sobbing screams of both delight and sorrow coming from Kraglin, perhaps this is yet another thing that Thanos was wrong to call useless.)

And for a second, when they are hugging (for what she fears will be both the first and the last time), she thinks Nebula will stay, but Nebula has always been the most determined of her siblings, and she cannot argue with her sister’s burning desire to see Thanos dead.

(She would too, but—

This is one lesson that she cannot shake: Thanos cannot be killed.)

Instead she leaves a crate of fruit in Nebula’s ship and waves her off, and dearly hopes she will see her again.

Life after that more or less goes back to the way it was before, albeit with two new members on the ship.

Kraglin is a surprisingly easy fit given all the stories Peter had about growing up with him and Yondu before. He mostly keeps out of the way, training hour after hour and day after day with the arrow, whistling until he’s coughing, and then whistling some more.

She thinks that maybe this is how he is dealing with his grief, much in the same way that Peter is constantly scrolling through his new music playing device, sometimes staring at it with unseeing eyes until Drax taps him on the shoulder and pulls him up.

Kraglin’s an old Ravager, so she supposes it makes sense that he can adjust to a new crew fairly easily. Besides, she’s dealt with Ravagers before; leave them be, and they’ll be fine.

Mantis on the other hand is a different story.

Unlike Kraglin who she rarely sees outside of mealtimes that Peter drags Kraglin to, Mantis is always hanging around her or Drax. She seems content to watch them sharpen their weapons, but constantly peppers them with questions about nearly everything under the stars.

She tries her best to be patient and answer to the best of her knowledge, especially since Drax can’t be trusted to not give Mantis what he thinks is a hilariously wrong answer.

(She can’t help but think that Mantis would have been ripped apart in days on Titan.

It would have either been one of Thanos’ children looking at easy prey, or it would have been a test for her, to prove her loyalty.

Thanos had never had a chance to doubt her loyalty until she ran.)

Drax in general means well, she knows, but his constant back-handed encouragements to Mantis wear thin quickly. After one particularly trying day where not only did Rocket steal the client’s favorite pen, but also Kraglin had boomeranged the arrow nearly back into her, and Groot’s teenage phase could not be over fast enough, Drax decides to pick the worst possible time to tell Mantis that if her shooting gets better, no one will mind that she is ugly.

“Shut up, Drax,” she snaps, grabbing one of his knives from the table at pointing it at him.

Drax blinks, “But Mantis’ training with Peter seems to have greatly improved her skills, despite the fact that she is ungainly and—”

“She’s not ugly,” she says, not letting go of the knife.

“But she’s—”

“Whatever you think, you should keep that to yourself,” she said, dropping the knife into his hands.

“Rocket doesn’t!” Drax protests.

She sighs and stares up at the ceiling, “Rocket’s favorite hobby outside of stealing shiny things seems to be building _bombs_ out of whatever is lying around. Can we please not base our behavior on what Rocket does?”

Mantis cautiously holds up a hand, “Um, I don’t mind really—it’s fine? I also think he’s ugly?”

“But you don’t say that every other sentence like Drax does to you, because that’s what _normal friends_ do,” Gamora replies, glaring at Drax.

Drax frowns and looks down at the knife in his hand, “…I see. I apologize, Mantis. I will attempt to keep my thoughts about your disturbing physical appearance—”

“Reword that,” Gamora clicks her tongue and glares warningly at him.

“—about your physical appearance to myself, from now on,” Drax continues after thinking about it for a bit.

“Good,” she says, standing up, “Keep it up.”

She walks out of the training room, thinking she may go try to pry Groot away from his video games to actually see some sunlight when she hears Mantis’ voice call out, “Wait!”

She turns around and sees Mantis followed her out and is now rubbing her hands together nervously, “You really didn’t have to—I know it’s a joke—”

“Not a very funny one,” she points out.

“Well—yes, but still,” Mantis looks her in the eye, “Thank you, but why?”

(She knows she can’t make up for the other children of Thanos she killed by just helping Mantis.

That’s not how things work; they are dead and gone, their bodies cast out into space, and their blood is on her hands.

She doesn’t even know their names because it was easier to kill them without ever asking that, but Mantis—

Mantis mourns those nine children of Ego she befriended and saw die. Mantis knows their names and every day visits that wall where their names are now carved courtesy of Peter to tell them about what new things she has seen and learned.

There is beauty in that.)

“None of us are very good at normal behavior, but Drax should know to not insult a friend,” she says carefully, “That’s all.”

“Oh,” Mantis says, her antenna drooping a bit before she bites her lip and asks, “Peter says you were raised by someone called Thanos?”

She takes a deep breath, “Yes.”

“Was he—was he like Ego?”

“Worse,” she answers with a bitter laugh.

“You’re so collected though,” Mantis said wonderingly, “You never seem to be afraid of anything.”

“You know that’s not true,” she points out, looking at Mantis’ antennae.

Mantis nods earnestly, “Yes but—you never _look_ scared of anything.”

“On Titan, we had to learn to never show any weakness. It was usually our death if we did,” she replies quietly, looking down at the ground.

“Ego just didn’t want me crying. He didn’t care about much else,” Mantis says, lowering her voice as well, “How—how did you get away?”

“Sometimes I think I didn’t; sometimes I think I was permitted to leave, but he’ll be back soon,” she admits.

Mantis nods, “Sometimes I think Ego will just appear and take me away again too.”

“We would kill him again if he tried,” she says firmly, looking Mantis in the eye.

Mantis’ mouth quirks up slightly into a smile, “They would do that for you too, wouldn’t they? And I mean, of course I would too—even though I don’t think I’d be much help—Peter says I’m getting better, but I think he’s just being nice…”

“Thank you,” she says sincerely, placing a hand on Mantis’ shoulder.

(She forgets sometimes that both of them have found their longed for family here.)

The girl beams, and it’s true that Mantis could never have become one of Thanos’ children, that Nebula would probably kill the girl as soon as talk to her, but when Mantis becomes flustered at Peter’s pats on the back or Drax’s hugs, she remembers Nebula standing stock-still when she hugged her and thinks maybe they are more similar than she thought.

Still, Nebula would never stand for instruction, nor did she need it for the most part, but Mantis is a beginner and nods seriously at any suggestions given, even if Peter complains that Gamora is butting in when she was the one who made him Mantis’ instructor in the first place.

“You don’t want to learn with Gamora, she’s the sink-and-swim type of trainer, with the emphasis on sink. And by sink, I mean stab,” Peter whispers to Mantis conspiratorially, shooting Gamora a look.

“Oh no, I’m sure Gamora is great—I mean, you’re a great teacher too, Peter! But Gamora must be too—”

She laughs and shakes her head, “I’m really not. But you still should carry a knife just in case someone gets close.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea! Will you or Drax teach me?” Mantis asks, clasping her hands together.

Peter groans, “Stop trying to poach my student Gamora!”

“Sorry,” she calls out over her shoulder, “And I’ll ask Drax.”

And she does, and Drax is pleased to teach, and surprisingly so are the others, with even Kraglin offering up suggestions about how to keep a tight grip on a knife, although she has to make sure Rocket doesn’t go from teaching Mantis how to build traps to teaching her how to build bombs because one arsonist magpie is enough, thank you very much.

And she thinks, looking at Mantis and Peter laughing as Rocket and Drax argue over whether or not Drax’s knives really need to be somehow upgraded, while Kraglin eats his soup and rolls his eyes, that this is what it means to live, not just survive.

She’s not sure she deserves all of this, but she has found where she belongs.

Let Thanos come and try to take it from her.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! Comments/kudos are greatly appreciated!
> 
> So the fic kind of loosely ties to my previous Mantis fic, be all my sins remembered and more, and if you liked this one, I think you'll enjoy that one as well!


End file.
